At 10:35 AM +0200 2/13/03, Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:
>Fair enough. But you seem to be implying that the web architecture
>should allow a user to override the rights of the web site owner. That
>if the web owner says "no robots here" that the user should still
>be allowed to invite them in. That's what you suggested in your
>original post.
I think you're confusing the web site with the web server. They are
not the same things; especially in the case of systems like GeoCities
and IBiblio. Indeed there can be a many-to-many relationship between
sites and servers when mirror sites are considered.
Yes, I do think site owners should be allowed to invite robots in,
even if the server owner says no. I think the web architecture needs
to focus on the sites, not the servers. In the ideal web, the actual
servers with their physical addresses and network connections would
vanish into the background. I think a server owner who does not
provide users with the necessary means to participate in the web
should be castigated the same as one who insists on providing a web
server that fails to properly implement HTTP.
Part of the job of the W3C and the tag is to tell the server owners
and software vendors what is expected of them and their products in
order to participate in the web.
--
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Processing XML with Java (Addison-Wesley, 2002) |
| http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xmljava |
| http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0201771861/cafeaulaitA |
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